A blog to discuss my experience of being in reunion with my birthfamily for the last twenty-five years. It's about identity and the integration of my life with my birthmother's and the unique blended family that forms as a result.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Below is Part 2 of our blog series sharing excerpts from our memoir, Kathleen~Cathleen. Last week we shared an excerpt from "Honeymoon," which gives a glimpse into the joy of coming together. However, all honeymoons come to an end. In "Going Dark - Sundown," we take the first steps into the darkness and confusion that are an inevitable part of reunion.

I had just started telling Kate a story about getting caught sneaking out of the beach house when Kate suddenly broke into tears. She jumped up from the table and walked from the table into the kitchen, shaking with sobs. She came back towards me, struggling for words, but would then turn away again, too upset to get the words out. I was baffled. What had I said? I replayed our conversation in my head and found nothing in it that should have upset her. We were talking about my family, the Jersey shore, nothing special.

“I’m sorry,” she said, choking the words out through the tears, putting her hand on the stove for support. “Even if your child were raised by angels, it’s still hard to let them go.”

I was stunned. It was the first time I had seen Kate express any regret. Up until then, she’d always discussed giving me up as being the best decision -- not only for her, but for me. She had been so young and she’d wanted to give me a better life. It made sense.

I had accepted her explanation. After all, it was a familiar chorus from people while I was growing up: “It was for the best,” they’d say - whether coming from friends, or relatives, or strangers. I was raised by two loving parents in a stable household without divorce. My dad was a chemist, my mom a housewife, and I had an older brother, also adopted. We were the ideal nuclear family. We would go on family vacations, I was a girl-scout. We never moved, I never had to change schools, I had the same friends all my life.

If I had been raised by Kate, my life would have been unstable. After all, she had been so young, certainly not prepared to raise a child. She would have been a poor, single mom, or with a man that wasn’t my father, or living with her parents bringing shame to the family. I should be glad I didn’t have that life.

Yet I started to realize that I wasn’t glad that she didn’t keep me. Hearing Kate’s confession and seeing her tears, I felt loved. Rationally, I knew that Kate had made the mature decision in giving me up for adoption. She was able to get back to her life and I was raised by people who wanted me. But that’s what had always nagged at me quietly in the back of my head: She didn’t want me, why didn’t she want me, what was wrong with me?

Even if my life was better because she gave me up for adoption, I still wanted her to regret having done it. I wanted her to have wanted me, even if it wasn’t wise or “for the best”.

All the things that I’d missed by having not been raised by Kate started floating up in my mind. If I’d been raised by Kate, I would have grown up with music being as natural to me as walking. I would have had art and creativity. I would have had someone understand me better than anyone else, just by being part of them, having the same genes. I would have had people that looked like me, thought like me, reacted like me.

Growing up, no one ever mentioned the things you would miss, only what you gained. It was as if that, by not mentioning the obvious loss, the child wouldn’t know what they were missing. After all, it’s just a baby. What do they know? I was starting to suspect that a baby knew a lot more than it has words for. By the time the ability to form words finally develops, they’ve already been told what to believe.

I went over to Kate and gave her a hug. I hoped the hug held the words that I wasn’t willing to say outloud. I would have liked to say, “Good. You should regret it.”

Thursday, July 23, 2015

As we work on finishing our draft of Kathleen~Cathleen, we wanted to do something new on the blog. For the first time on the blog, we are sharing excerpts from the memoir's original manuscript with you, our readers. We hope to hear your thoughts, impressions and questions.

The intent of our memoir is to share the true story of reunion in all its complexities; the heights of its joys, the depths of its sorrows and the perseverance it takes to journey through the thrill of the initial meeting to get to the grips of a real relationship. There are many stories that share the experience of separation and reunion. Our book explains what happens next.

As we do with the blog, we have written from the unique and contrasting experiences of both the birthmother and the adoptee through our individual viewpoints. The excerpts we are posting here are the only parts of the book that we have shared with each other. While we have an outline that we created together, we have not yet read each other's chapters. We want to keep the purity of our personal recollections and impressions uninfluenced by the other's point of view.

The result is that it is you, the reader, who brings the stories together, creating something new, something greater than the sum of its parts.

Over the next few weeks we will share sections from the memoir that highlight crucial turning points in our relationship: Honeymoon, Going Dark, Therapy and Integration.

Below is my excerpt from the Honeymoon chapter of the memoir (then read Kate's Honeymoon excerpt at mothertone).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Want a cup of tea before bed?” Kate asked.

“Sure,” I said. Having still more questions than answers, it seemed neither of us were quite ready to let the night end.

Unlike our first meeting, now there were no limitations on our time, no need to leave after our appointment was over. Our conversations felt limitless as well – there was so much to talk about, so much to learn. I recalled how I imagined meeting my birthmother might be, back when I was a teenager. I thought I would learn everything about her in the first meeting and then go back to my life, contented with the knowledge gained. As I settled into my seat at Kate’s kitchen table, Kate put on the kettle for tea. As she poured the boiling water over a blend of peppermint and camomile cradled in a metal mesh sphere, I realized I'd never had tea other than Lipton's before. Having a pot of herbal tea might seem like a small thing, insignificant; but for me it felt like it was just one of innumerable magical things that I was being introduced to by Kate.

She was a musician, independent, living on her own. She was creative and bright and her home reflected that with its whimsical details - the batik cloth hanging as a separator between the music room and her bedroom, the painting of the pepper that hung in her kitchen, the two small parakeets who kept chorus in the corner of the room. In talking with her, it I felt like she understood me instantly, that she could relate to my own, unique way of viewing the world, who understood that world as well, and maybe could even lead me in it. I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t realized how alone I had felt for my entire life until that moment. Having someone understand me in such a complete way that incorporated beliefs, point of view, an understanding made me discover that I could know things without it having been taught.

I wanted to know everything about her, understand who she was, know everything about her life.

I was reminded of Sleeping Beauty, raised by strangers away from who she was, unknowingly being hidden from her home by her own parents for her safety, to protect her from a witch’s curse. My curse of hiding had finally been lifted and I was back to my origins, to a world that I never knew existed, but that I could instantly recognize ... as home.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

For those of you who have been following the blog, you know that Kate and I have been going through a challenging time. A blow-out at Christmas unearthed misunderstandings about our relationship that we've been trying to sort through. It hasn't been easy. She sees our relationship one way, and I see it in another way.

I've had to say things that I know are hurtful (though I hate hurting people) and we've had discussions that are hard. I've had to set boundaries. Kate has too. It's meant that we've had to put some distance between us.

At the same time, we set a goal of getting the final draft of the book done by the end of summer. It means being steadfast in working on the book even though we're in an uncomfortable place between us. But, if anything, as the book shows, we've been there before. It's not the first time we've had to have hard conversations or figure out where we stand with each other. The writing is a reminder of that.

So, as Kate and I were writing together at the bar last night we decided that for our first blog back after these months should be about what hope our relationship to be. A Wish List.

As the adoptee in reunion, my wish is to be the whole of who I am. That means being unapologetic about the different sides of myself that make me who I am (I also write about adoption at The Lost Daughters, and wrote a post about identity that's was inspired by all of this).

My wish is that Kate and I will be able to talk and connect again at the same level of intimacy that we've had in the past. I think back on times where we've sat in her backyard with a fire going, sharing sips of whiskey, and talking into the hours of the night. It's not something I would do with a mom. But, it is something I do with Kate.

I want to get to a place where things feel normal again. Our normal, anyway. We've never gotten to a place of unencumbered comfort. There are always triggers, there are always sore spots. But we were settled in that space. I'd like to be there again.

I hope I am able to untangle all the feelings of guilt, obligation, confusion that fuses into feeling that I don't meet Kate's expectations. That what I'm able to give is enough.